Free Born with Teeth: A Memoir by Kate Mulgrew

her.”
    At the mention of Mother’s name, B.J. looked away.
    “Have you seen Mother?” I demanded. “How is she?”
    “She’s been out at the abbey with Mother Columba, but she’ll be back by the time Jenny is home.”
    “Back by the time Jenny is home” connoted a good deal of time that Mother had been at Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey under the care of her great friend and mentor, Mother Columba, and whereas a period of reflection and mourning could only benefit my mother, it did not necessarily bode well for Jenny.
    Eventually, weary and resigned, her face streaked with tears, Jenny came down to the kitchen from her hiding place upstairs in my closet. Very slowly, I packed her things, and then we all had a late lunch, sitting on the porch.
    B.J. glanced at his watch. “We should really get moving,” he said. “As it is, we’ll have to stop at a motel in Cleveland.” Jenny looked at me in horror, barely stifling a groan. B.J. quickly amended this. “On second thought, I think we’ll just drive straight through. I’ve got a pillow and blanket in the truck; Jen can get some shut-eye on the road.”
    It was a torturous good-bye, and when at last she was in the truck and they were rolling out through the gate, Jenny suddenly threw the passenger door open and, the truck still moving, jumped out and ran back to me, crying, “I love you, Kate! I don’t want to go! Please don’t make me go!”
    After considerable shushing and kissing and cajoling, my sister, looking for all the world like a little old woman, stooped and shuffled her way back to the truck and, climbing slowly into the cab, turned her face to look at me as they pulled away, her nose pressed against the window, her hand lifted in farewell. I watched until they were out of sight, and until they were out of sight, that little face had her eyes on mine.
    I didn’t know what to do with myself after she’d gone. The house was empty; loneliness touched everything. While Jenny was hiding, I had pressed B.J. for details of Tessie’s funeral, and he had told me four things: that during the reading of the Song of Solomon, as the priest spoke the words “My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and comeaway,” a doe had come up from the timberland and stood at a little distance, watching. That my father’s knees had buckled under the weight of the coffin as he carried it to the hearse, and he had fallen on the casket, sobbing, “I never thought you’d go out like this, sugar.” That Father Kevin O’Rourke did not attend the funeral service but instead sent his regrets, explaining that he was needed at a fund-raiser in Colorado. That it was not my father at all, but a woman with black hair and sad eyes who helped my mother into her car and watched as she drove off to the Trappistine convent.
    I poured myself a glass of Grayce’s Pinot Grigio, watched as the last of the day’s sun burned diamonds in the dappled orchard, and made my way upstairs for my last night in Putney Woods, at the end of a summer that had defined me as an actress.
    I had fallen into a deep sleep and woke to the first notes of birdsong. Opening my eyes, I saw long fingers of light weaving a gentle pattern on the wooden floor. I saw him before I heard him; he’d been so careful and light-footed as he climbed the stairs. And then David was there, standing in the doorway, unsmiling, looking at me with those grave black eyes. It had all been weighed and gone over a thousand times, I could tell. And I could also tell that whatever battle he had waged with himself, he had lost, and that this disturbed him still.
    He moved then, crossing the room swiftly, never taking his eyes from mine, and not a word had been exchanged—not one—when he leaned down and, against his better judgment, kissed me.

On the Spears
    David resisted me, even when he found me irresistible, which I realize now must have been exhausting. Such is the diabolical nature of sexual